I’m strongly disinclined to delve into the matter of consent in the sexual encounter, as it primarily pertains to (alleged) misconduct by Alex/Koshin (who I don’t really know), whereas the accusations of organizational malfeasance (e.g. a cover-up) pertain to all of MAPLE/OAK/CEDAR (where I do know several people, and which I’m just going to call MAPLE going forward).
In particular, I’m noticing that Koshin described having been asked to write a letter with Shekinah, describing their relationship status and intentions, while Shekinah described having been pressured into signing a letter which Soryu had instructed Koshin to write. Shekinah also described various statements in the letter in a way that leaves it ambiguous whether or not those statements were included in Soryu’s instruction to Koshin.
My own experiences with MAPLE track more closely with the interpretation that the statements in the letter were not included as part of Soryu’s instruction to Koshin, and since Shekinah does not describe interacting with Soryu on this point, I don’t really see any support in the provided texts for the interpretation where Soryu included those statements in his instruction. I’m open to correction, but for now I’m going to work forward from the assumption that Soryu did not provide such detailed instruction.
In Shekinah’s account, she was clearly uninvolved in the drafting of the letter, and Koshin’s account provides no conflicting information about her involvement. So given the assumption already made, it looks very much like Soryu asked for a formal account of what happened, and Koshin wrote his account and got Shekinah to co-sign it.
Shekinah describes having felt “pressured by leaders” to sign the letter in question, and to do so in front of the community. From what she writes, it sounds like the reason she didn’t want to sign the letter is because she believed its contents to be untrue. I don’t know what steps were taken to ascertain Shekinah’s belief in the truth of the statements she describes herself as having been pressured to sign. That said, my experiences don’t track with the idea that any leaders within MAPLE would encourage someone to sign something that is not true.
However the narrative of a cover-up, and of organizational malfeasance more broadly, seems to rely on an acceptance of the premise that the organization was involved in ways like this, which there’s no evidence provided to support. I certainly see mistakes being made, but I don’t see a reason to believe that those mistakes were bigger than trusting Koshin to engage Shekinah adequately in the process of drafting the letter that she would later sign (to ensure that the text of the letter reflected her understanding of the truth of the matter), or trusting Shekinah not to sign off on statements that she believed to be untrue. As far as I know, the rationale for the signing being done in front of the community may have been an effort to promote honesty rather than compliance (and promoting honesty tracks much more closely with my experiences with MAPLE than promoting compliance does).
On an even more basic level, MAPLE’s error may simply have been to have seen an applicant so damaged by her past experiences as to be unable to see the people around her as anything other than threatening figures demanding compliance, and not to have told that applicant “sorry, you’re not ready to train with us”.
As I mentioned when doing so, I’ve made a couple of assumptions based on my experiences with MAPLE, or on what seems to me to be common sense. These assumptions may be wrong, and I hope that if they are, someone can provide the missing details to illustrate how, so that they can be corrected.
I’m strongly disinclined to delve into the matter of consent in the sexual encounter, as it primarily pertains to (alleged) misconduct by Alex/Koshin (who I don’t really know), whereas the accusations of organizational malfeasance (e.g. a cover-up) pertain to all of MAPLE/OAK/CEDAR (where I do know several people, and which I’m just going to call MAPLE going forward).
In particular, I’m noticing that Koshin described having been asked to write a letter with Shekinah, describing their relationship status and intentions, while Shekinah described having been pressured into signing a letter which Soryu had instructed Koshin to write. Shekinah also described various statements in the letter in a way that leaves it ambiguous whether or not those statements were included in Soryu’s instruction to Koshin.
My own experiences with MAPLE track more closely with the interpretation that the statements in the letter were not included as part of Soryu’s instruction to Koshin, and since Shekinah does not describe interacting with Soryu on this point, I don’t really see any support in the provided texts for the interpretation where Soryu included those statements in his instruction. I’m open to correction, but for now I’m going to work forward from the assumption that Soryu did not provide such detailed instruction.
In Shekinah’s account, she was clearly uninvolved in the drafting of the letter, and Koshin’s account provides no conflicting information about her involvement. So given the assumption already made, it looks very much like Soryu asked for a formal account of what happened, and Koshin wrote his account and got Shekinah to co-sign it.
Shekinah describes having felt “pressured by leaders” to sign the letter in question, and to do so in front of the community. From what she writes, it sounds like the reason she didn’t want to sign the letter is because she believed its contents to be untrue. I don’t know what steps were taken to ascertain Shekinah’s belief in the truth of the statements she describes herself as having been pressured to sign. That said, my experiences don’t track with the idea that any leaders within MAPLE would encourage someone to sign something that is not true.
However the narrative of a cover-up, and of organizational malfeasance more broadly, seems to rely on an acceptance of the premise that the organization was involved in ways like this, which there’s no evidence provided to support. I certainly see mistakes being made, but I don’t see a reason to believe that those mistakes were bigger than trusting Koshin to engage Shekinah adequately in the process of drafting the letter that she would later sign (to ensure that the text of the letter reflected her understanding of the truth of the matter), or trusting Shekinah not to sign off on statements that she believed to be untrue. As far as I know, the rationale for the signing being done in front of the community may have been an effort to promote honesty rather than compliance (and promoting honesty tracks much more closely with my experiences with MAPLE than promoting compliance does).
On an even more basic level, MAPLE’s error may simply have been to have seen an applicant so damaged by her past experiences as to be unable to see the people around her as anything other than threatening figures demanding compliance, and not to have told that applicant “sorry, you’re not ready to train with us”.
As I mentioned when doing so, I’ve made a couple of assumptions based on my experiences with MAPLE, or on what seems to me to be common sense. These assumptions may be wrong, and I hope that if they are, someone can provide the missing details to illustrate how, so that they can be corrected.